by Steven
a circuit party in Nirvana of Jakarta
I may have to recant some of what I wrote about Indonesia on my post about Lady Gaga being censored in Malaysia. Yours truly is currently on a 2 week hiatus in Jakarta, Indonesia. It’s been 8 years since my last visit and I’ve been noticing quite a few changes in this densely populated city I call my birthplace. Aside from the noticeably worse traffic, I’m sensing a positive change especially in the lives of LGBT people. Continue reading
Posted in Getting Better, Globetrotting
Tagged bisexual, gay, Indonesia, Jakarta, lesbian, LGBT, Olga Syahputra, transgendered, travel
by Quentin
I first met Lucky Kuswandi through a mutual friend when he was studying film at the Art Center in Pasadena. I went to visit him on the set of his very first short about a woman and her relation with a black cat. Lucky later moved back to Indonesia to pursue his film career and made his first feature Madame X last year which is currently on the film festival circuit. Madame X has just played at the Hong Kong International Film Festival and will be premiering in the U.S. at the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival.
Q: Can you talk about how you arrived at filmmaking? You studied in the U.S. and then you went back to Indonesia… Continue reading
Posted in Sight and Sound
Tagged Aming, Arisan!, Hong Kong International Film Festival, In the Absence of the Sun, Indonesian subtitles, Islamic law, Jakarta, Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival, Lucky Kuswandi, Madame X, Muslim country, Nia Dinata, Q! Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, The Metamorphosis of Wannabe Pop Stars
by Quentin
I just discovered this first film about queer women in Indonesia from a friend’s post on Facebook. According to a webpage, it’s “the first film about the world and experiences of queer women in Indonesia. In this interlace short films, nine female filmmakers show us about what it means to be a queer woman in the country with the world largest Muslim population.” The titular character Srikandi is a character in the Mahabharata, the classic Hindu epic, that is frequently used in Indonesian shadow puppet theater. In one version, Srikandi is the female warrior who becomes a man to marry a woman and bear kids by changing gender identity and sexual orientation. The legend reminds me of Virginia Woolf’s Orlando. Continue reading
